I shook my head at her, and she hesitated, one click, two, three.
“Put your hand down, Cora.”
Her fingers curled, and slowly she obeyed, pulling her hand to her chest.
“Tell me about your day.”
“Yiri, I’m serious,” she said. “I’m breaking up with you. You can’t just listen to all that and then ask me how my day was like nothing happened.”
“I didn’t ask how it was,” I said. “Your day was shit. I can see that. I want to knowwhat happened. Why is my wife unhappy?”
“I’m not your wife.”
“Tell me,Aneah.”
“There’s… nothing to tell,” she said. “And… Yiri, you can’t keep calling me that. I’m not… I don’t want you to think that’s what I am to you.”
“Let me worry about that,” I said. “Talk to me. Tell me what your friend Andrew said.”
She sighed, her shoulders falling. “He just reminded me why I even created an account on BMM, and that I’m not one of those women who… who runs off to the other side of the universe for a man.”
“I’m not on the other side of the universe, Cora,” I said. “We’re pretty close, relatively speaking.”
She clicked her tongue, flapping her hand impatiently. “You know what I mean.”
“No, tell me,Aneah. What kind of woman does that, and why don’t you want to be one of them?”
She looked away, tugging at the collar of her shirt. “I don’t mean… Look, I told Andrew at lunch, I get it. Maybe I didn’t when I first signed up, but I understand now how… tempting it is.”
“How tempting what is?”
She gave me her eyes again, and I felt a thrill low in my gut.
“How temptingyouare,” she said. “But I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I already knew she had no family and very few friends. This Andrew was barely more than a colleague from her last job. She had nothing to tie her to her home world but fear of the unknown.
“Is there a human man there who wants to provide for you, protect and cherish you?”
She didn’t answer, so I changed my approach. I had hoped to avoid this conversation, at least until she was here, where I could plead for her understanding. But maybe this was better.Maybe.
“Since we are making confessions, I have one for you, too.”
“Don’t tell me about them,” she said, stopping me. “I’d rather not… do that, okay? I get it. I’m fine with it.”
“Are you talking about other women, again,Aneah?”
“Yes,” she said, scowling. “Of course. But like I said, I’d rather not.”
“Good, because there are none to talk about.”
She rolled her eyes, and I ground my teeth.
“You don’t believe me.”
“Why should I?”
